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‘Switch from plurality to majority voting’
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Posted on Nov 22 2005
The outcome of this year’s close gubernatorial election should prompt the Commonwealth to consider switching from plurality to majority voting, according to Gov. Juan N. Babauta.
House Speaker and governor-elect Benigno R. Fitial received 28.07 percent of the total votes cast for the gubernatorial race. He won by 99 votes against his closest opponent, Heinz Hofschneider, who got 27.34 percent.
Babauta, who finished third in the four-way contest with 26.6 percent, raised concern about his successor’s mandate.
ÅgTo me, this is very critical. [Fitial got] only 28 percent; we have the rest of the voters who obviously did not vote for the speaker. That is a matter of concern when you don’t have the mandate to serve,Åh Babauta said.
ÅgThe Legislature needs to look at a law that requires the majority of the voting public to give a candidate a mandate to serve,Åh he added.
Currently, the CNMI’s election law only requires a candidate to have more votes than his or her opponents to be elected to a position. If he receives 50 votes, for example, and two other candidates receive 49 and 2, he will have a plurality of one vote over his closest opponent.
Such candidate, however, cannot be proclaimed winner in a majority voting, which requires a candidate to receive more than 50 percent of the total votes cast.
Babauta’s landslide victory in the 2001 elections did not also meet the 50-percent majority requirement. The Babauta-Benavente tandem grabbed 42.8 percent of the total votes cast four years ago. Their closest rival, Fitial and Rita H. Inos of the Covenant Party, got 24.4 percent of the overall votes.
